Last week, while walking her dogs, Zola and Bula, along Good Harbor Beach, Olmstead noticed large ice boulders littering the Lake Michigan shoreline. Some were the size of basketballs. Others might have weighed 75 pounds. A few were bigger than Bula, her English bulldog.

A frequent visitor to the Sleeping Bear shore, even during the winter, Olmstead had never seen such ice formations. She snapped photos of the ice boulders and uploaded them to her Facebook page. A few friends commented on the photos and shared them.

MLive.com saw the photos on Facebook, asked Olmstead for permission and posted them Friday afternoon. Other Michigan news organizations did as well. Then the internet and the viral phenomenon took over.

When something goes viral on the internet and social media, be a funny video or interesting photo, it spreads like a virus. The original creator of the content loses control and the photos or video show up everywhere.

"Good Morning America" called, asking if they could use her photos, Olmstead said. "ABC Nightly News" also asked permission. Many more ABC news stations used the photos. Olmstead's ice boulder photos ended up on the websites of the Lansing State Journal and The New York Daily News. Even a cable television channel in Taiwan, Eastern Television, ran a photo of the ice boulders and their website, www.ettoday.net.

The photos have brought considerable attention to Sleeping Bear Dunes. The main entrance to Good Harbor Beach was mobbed with people last weekend looking for the boulders. They will have to hike to find them, Olmstead said. The boulders sit in a secluded section of beach easily accessible by a trail from her property.

The attention has surprising and fun, Olmstead said. A few friends have suggested she figure out a way to make money from the photos.

She has other plans. Olmstead, with the help of a few friends, wants to turn the field of ice boulders into a field of hundreds of snowmen. She figures that photo could go viral too.